


Catra's Guide to Love and Redemption

by footsieinthegarden



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, Developing Relationship, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Catra (She-Ra), Retelling, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26573914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/footsieinthegarden/pseuds/footsieinthegarden
Summary: Adora still defects from the Horde. Catra still goes back. But this time, they're working together.The She-Ra retelling of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder that absolutely no one asked for.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Catra's Guide to Love and Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is one of my absolute favorite musicals - the most delightful, upbeat story of systematic murder you'll ever enjoy. Thanks to Noelle and Co's excellent writing, this version will have, unfortunately, less murder. I promise to compensate with extra Catradora love. ;)
> 
> Minor to moderate spoilers for the musical, but no prior knowledge necessary to enjoy!

It’s not like Catra had never entertained fantasies about Adora. She had a great imagination! She needed it to cope with the mind-crushing monotony of the Fright Zone. So obviously she had great fantasies! She needed them to cope with...well, she just needed them, okay? For other...mind-crushing things. Yeah. 

But one thing that hadn’t been covered in Horde training was the insanity Princesses could imagine. Adora: (even) more muscular, a little bit taller from some sort of final bonus growth spurt, sure. That was in the realm of realism. Adora: absolutely jacked, several feet taller, and in extremely short pants? Well, at least it was now confirmed that Catra couldn’t have spontaneous nosebleeds, since one was not happening at this moment. 

Oh yeah, and the magical glowing body and flowing mane of golden (also glowing) hair didn’t hurt either. 

“Catra! What are you doing here?” 

“Gee, I don’t know. I’m a soldier. I was sent on a mission. That’s like...my job.” Catra rolled her eyes and sprang up on the edge of her tank to be eye-level with this...different Adora. “It’s your job.” 

“Catra - I - how did you find me?”

Catra looked off to the side and growled for a split second. “Magic.” She turned back and reached out to poke the garnet in Adora’s shiny fancy new tiara but stopped just short. “Something it seems like you know a whole lot more about than us lowly cavalry, Force Captain.” 

Adora shook her head vigorously and Catra had to lean back to avoid the flailing golden waves of hair. “No, Catra. How can you - if, or when, yes, let’s say when, I turn back into me, which is something I still need to figure out, but it’s got to be easier than becoming - this, right - anyway, I’m taking off my badge. I’m taking off my uniform.” Catra’s ears flickered. “All this destruction. For a peaceful village! Having a party!” Catra squinted one eye. “I didn’t know. I - I think - I think Shadow Weaver lied. Or maybe not lied, but - stretched the truth. The only bad things happening here are because of the Horde!” 

Catra jumped up another level on the tank, then to the ground, that back to her previous spot, fur puffed out. Adora, still very tall and very glow-y, was still looking at her, dead serious. “Wait. You’re serious?”

“Yes, Catra, of course I am.” 

Catra cackled. How could she help herself? The transformation clearly hadn’t done anything to Adora’s brain. At least it proved that the fall from the skiff hadn’t done any damage either. “Of course she did, dummy. It’s literally in her name!”

“Oh. I guess I never thought of that,” Adora said, looking extremely thoughtful now. “But wait! If you knew, why didn’t you say anything? Why am I just finding this out?” Catra had to hop out of the way of the whipping, glowing hair again.

She felt her ears pin back reflexively and only got them back into a neutral position with an extreme exertion of her willpower. Like the kind she had to use when - she was just very well-honed, okay? “Like I would be the one to derail your lifelong dream of becoming Force Captain.” It took an extra dose of willpower to roll her eyes again. “Now, hurry up. I haven’t got all day.” She waved a hand. 

“No, Catra. I meant it. I’m not going back. I can’t go back.” Catra puffed out her entire body this time, tail standing straight up. She was still so impossibly small in front of Adora. “I can’t let you go back either.” She made to touch Catra, who hissed and slid back a step. Adora’s eyes filled with - tears? Catra had never seen Adora cry. Ever. Not even when she had come in third that one time during a training exercise. She looked down at her sword, and suddenly she was out of her weird Princess Mode thing. Catra leapt down from the tank but only got within arm’s length of Adora after she had dropped the sword. 

“Catra - it’s, I know it’s only been a few hours away from the Fright Zone. But I’ve been away from more than just the place. I think - if it were just leaving the Horde, just-” She swallowed hard. “Just defecting,” she whispered the word as if to keep Shadow Weaver from hearing, “I wouldn’t have been so confused. I see this is the right thing to do. That’s clear. But I can’t leave you! I think that’s why I was so conflicted.” She held out a (regular, non-glowy) hand. “Please, Catra. Come with me.” 

Catra reached out to touch it, to take it, to grasp it, to push it against her face and never let go. 

She sprang back. “Sometimes things just aren’t that simple for the rest of us, Adora.” Adora looked at her blankly. “Were you even listening? We knew you were here because of M-A-G-I-C magic, Adora. I know you’re dumb, but come on.”

“Wait.” Adora retracted her hand to cover her mouth. “You mean - Shadow Weaver?”

“Yes, Adora, Shadow Weaver. You know, the one who has been able to track us our whole lives?”

“Wait, what?” Adora’s other hand flew to her mouth. 

Yeah, Adora’s brain was in the same condition it always was. Catra’s brain was definitely not when Adora leapt into her personal space and firmly grasped her wrist. “You mean - she’ll follow you? Follow us?” 

“I mean, I think I’d be pretty lucky if all she did was follow me. That sounds like a really relaxing time, honestly.” She looked off into the woods and not at where Adora still held her. 

“Glimmer!” Adora shouted and Catra flipped her ears backwards at the sudden noise. 

“Adora? Are you okay?” Another Princess jogged over, a ball of magic in one hand, though it was dim and flickered constantly. 

“Yeah. I’m fine. Listen, I know you need to recharge or whatever but I need you to take us somewhere safe to talk.” 

“Glimmer!” Finally a not-Princess joined them. Apparently he wasn’t into shirts. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Adora spent some more time with him. “Adora, I’m sorry, it’s too dangerous for Glimmer. You shouldn’t-”

“Do you want one Princess to join the rebellion, or two?”

“I am absolutely not a Prin-” Catra’s squawk was cut off by her wretching all over a stone floor. When she was better and had groomed her face clean, Sparkles was gone, and Adora was sitting on a nearby staircase. Catra looked up at the ceiling, and then at the pieces of it that were now on the floor. 

“I came here, I was brought here, to find answers. About - everything.”

Catra looked pointedly back up at the ceiling. “It looks like it was a smashing success,” she said drily. Adora laughed a little bit and a tiny purr escaped Catra. 

“I said I came here to find answers. Not that I found any. This place - I can read some of the inscriptions here, which I guess is another special power or something only I have - but I have no idea how it works.” She looked up, eyes wide and a little wet again. “Catra, I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know who She-Ra is, or why I can become her, or how to become her, or why I had all sorts of visions when I touched the sword, or - Catra, I just found out my whole life is a lie. The thing I spent my whole life trying to achieve, trying to be, what I thought I wanted, is a lie. One big complete lie.” She slammed a fist into her other palm. “But Catra, you’re not a lie. I know it. I have to do this, I don’t think I can just stop being She-Ra, but I don’t know how I’ll do any of this alone.” 

Catra sniffed and hopped around a few fallen pieces of ceiling, and maybe some bits of walls. Adora really had done a number in here. “You didn’t exactly seem alone with Sparkles and Shirtless at your beck and call.”

“Glimmer and Bow - they’re great,” Catra’s ears flattened, “but they’re not you, Catra. They’re on the right side of this war, and I hope they like me for more than being She-Ra, but I don’t know that. And I know they’re not you.” 

Catra climbed slowly down and crouched near Adora, tracing patterns in the rubble on the ground with a claw. 

“Catra, if you knew that the Horde was wrong, why were you okay staying?” 

She flicked her ears at the sword. “We weren’t even trying to leave, Adora, and we didn’t exactly do so great of job. We made it like five feet into the Whispering Woods. And now you can turn into a Princess.” 

“I know there’s more than that, Catra. You’re smart. You could’ve figured out a plan. We could’ve tried.” 

“I-” Catra swallowed. “You wanted to be Force Captain.” Adora didn’t reply. “And let’s be real, I was never going to do that great anywhere I went, but if you were in charge, if I was friends with the person running everything, it couldn’t be that bad. It would be better.” Her tail lashed the cracked stone behind her. “And like I’ve been trying to tell you,” she snapped, “it’s not like Shadow Weaver is ever going to make it easy. She was pretty clear on what I was supposed to do.”

Adora stood and then knelt, she actually got down on her knees, in front of Catra and took her hands. “Catra, how much did she hurt you?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Her fur puffed out a bit as ghostly cracks of electricity ran through her body. 

“She’s going to hurt you if you don’t bring me back.” 

Catra cackled. “Hurt me? Adora, you are an idiot. She’s going to execute me, and that’s if she’s in a particularly good mood. And Shadow Weaver is never in any version of a good mood. Especially not around me.” 

“Then come with me.”

“I told you already, Adora. It’s. Not. That. Simple.” 

“Okay, I have a plan. Well. Sort of. You need to go back to the Fright Zone.”

“Adora, do I need to repeat the part of me being executed? Are you even listening to me?” 

“Shadow Weaver sent you to find me and bring me back, right? If you come with me to Bright Moon, she’ll find both of us and use you as leverage.” Adora stopped pacing and stared up at a patch of sky. “And I can’t go back. What they’re doing is wrong, and I can’t even control She-Ra yet. They could turn her, make her into something she’s not supposed to be, and I wouldn’t know how to stop them. It’s some kind of magic, Shadow Weaver would know so much more than me. 

“But you were right. If I stayed, became Force Captain, worked my way up, I could’ve been in charge. I could’ve been the next Shadow Weaver and stopped all this. I think you could be that person.”

“Uh, hate to repeat myself yet again, Adora, but Shadow Weaver isn’t exactly my number one fan. I doubt she’ll tripping all over her stupid robe to promote me.” 

“Then we’ll start smaller. We’ll give her no choice.” 

“Adora, I know the whole rebellion and good guys thing might take awhile to sink in, but that might not accept you with such open arms if they found you have me murdering Horde officers in calculated cold blood. They let you in. They obviously think some of us can change.”

Adora laughed. “Catra, of course that’s not what I meant. I told you - you’re smart. You just have to start getting rid of them. That doesn’t have to mean murder.”

“That usually is what it means.” 

“Okay, maybe I’m starting to see why everyone apparently calls it the Evil Horde.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Catra said under her breath and rolled her eyes. More loudly she said, “Also we still haven’t solved the problem of me being executed yet. And forgive me, Your Highness,” she gave a mock bow, “that is rather high up on my personal priority list.” 

“Easy. I’ll best you in battle. You’ll go back defeated, not through any fault of your own. I know Shadow Weaver doesn’t like you, but even she has to allow for the fact that you couldn’t have exactly planned for She-Ra. And you’ll have been the only one to fight me in close, one-on-one combat. She’ll want that information. She’ll want ideas on how to stop me.” 

“You’re really serious?” Catra looked up and into Adora’s blue eyes, now dry and set. “You really want me to be your mole on the inside?” She sniffed. “So all that ‘Catra, how could I possibly go on without you’ bit was a show? A way to trick me into this conversation?” 

“No, Catra. Of course not. I’m thinking of this as we go. We can’t - we would never be at peace together in Bright Moon, out fighting, while this war is happening. We’d both be constantly looking over our shoulders for Shadow Weaver. She would put all her energy into tearing us apart. I can’t leave you, but you can’t come with me. We have to do this. So that I never have to leave you again. So we can find out where our home really is.” 

Catra slashed her tail. “You mean that, Adora?” She swallowed. “Our home?”

“I mean what I say, Catra.” She stood and pulled Catra up. “Now let’s get into character. We have a bit of a show to perform when Glimmer brings us back.” 

“You’re the one who’s the terrible actor. I was born for this. ‘Oh, Force Captain, please, don’t hurt me.’” Catra faked a swoon and laughed. Adora laughed too, as she bent to retrieve her sword, and a longer purr rumbled out of Catra unbidden. “I’m totally poking your tiara this time. Try not to shock me or something.” 

There was a blinding flash of light, and tall golden ripped stunning Adora was back. She bowed and lifted Catra’s hand to the crown jewel herself. It felt golden, which Catra hadn’t known could be a feeling but apparently was, and more right than anything she had ever felt before. “Shadow Weaver is our enemy.”

**Author's Note:**

> The one time I heard my cat growl was at a thunderstorm. It was not very effective.


End file.
